The Lost Road Part 11

"It seems to suit her," the consul agreed. "Anyway, if she doesn't come from there, that's where she's going--just on account of the good she's done us while she's been here. She arrived four months ago with a typewriting-machine and letters to me from our consuls in Cape Town and Durban. She had done some typewriting for them. It seems that after her husband died, which was a few months after they were married, she learned to make her living by typewriting. She worked too hard and broke down, and the doctor said she must go to hot countries, the 'hotter the better.' So she's worked her way half around the world typewriting. She worked chiefly for her own consuls or for the American commission houses. Sometimes she stayed a month, sometimes only over one steamer day. But when she got here Lady Firth took such a fancy to her that she made Sir George engage her as his private secretary, and she's been here ever since."

In a community so small as was that of Zanzibar the white residents saw one another every day, and within a week Hemingway had met Mrs. Adair many times. He met her at dinner, at the British agency; he met her in the country club, where the white exiles gathered for tea and tennis.

He hired a launch and in her honor gave a picnic on the north coast of the island, and on three glorious and memorable nights, after different dinner-parties had ascended to the roof, he sat at her side and across the white level of the housetops looked down into the moonlit harbor.

What interest the two young people felt in each other was in no way discouraged by their surroundings. In the tropics the tender emotions are not winter killed. Had they met at home, the conventions, his own work, her social duties would have kept the progress of their interest within a certain speed limit. But they were in a place free of conventions, and the preceding eight months which Hemingway had spent in the jungle and on the plain had made the society of his fellow man, and of Mrs. Adair in particular, especially attractive.

Hemingway had no work to occupy his time, and he placed it unreservedly at the disposition of his countrywoman. In doing so it could not be said that Mrs. Adair encouraged him. Hemingway himself would have been the first to acknowledge this. From the day he met her he was conscious that always there was an intangible barrier between them.

Even before she possibly could have guessed that his interest in her was more than even she, attractive as she was, had the right to expect, she had wrapped around herself an invisible mantle of defense.

There were certain speeches of his which she never heard, certain tones to which she never responded. At moments when he was complimenting himself that at last she was content to be in his company, she would suddenly rise and join the others, and he would be left wondering in what way he could possibly have offended.

He a.s.sured himself that a woman, young and attractive, in a strange land in her dependent position must of necessity be discreet, but in his conduct there certainly had been nothing that was not considerate, courteous, and straightforward.

When he appreciated that he cared for her seriously, that he was gloriously happy in caring, and proud of the way in which he cared, the fact that she persistently held him at arm's length puzzled and hurt.

At first when he had deliberately set to work to make her like him he was glad to think that, owing to his reticence about himself, if she did like him it would be for himself alone and not for his worldly goods. But when he knew her better he understood that if once Mrs.

Adair made up her mind to take a second husband, the fact that he was a social and financial somebody, and not, as many in Zanzibar supposed Hemingway to be, a social outcast, would make but little difference.

Nor was her manner to be explained by the fact that the majority of women found him unattractive. As to that, the pleasant burden of his experience was to the contrary. He at last wondered if there was some one else, if he had come into her life too late. He set about looking for the man and so, he believed, he soon found him.

Of the little colony, Arthur Fearing was the man of whom Hemingway had seen the least. That was so because Fearing wished it. Like himself, Fearing was an American, young, and a bachelor, but, very much unlike Hemingway, a hermit and a recluse.

Two years before he had come to Zanzibar looking for an investment for his money. In Zanzibar there were gentlemen adventurers of every country, who were welcome to live in any country save their own.

To them Mr. Fearing seemed a heaven-sent victim. But to him their alluring tales of the fortunes that were to rise from buried treasures, lost mines, and pearl beds did not appeal. Instead he conferred with the consuls, the responsible merchants, the partners in the prosperous trading houses. After a month of "looking around" he had purchased outright the goodwill and stock of one of the oldest of the commission houses, and soon showed himself to be a most capable man of business.

But, except as a man of business, no one knew him. From the dim recesses of his warehouse he pa.s.sed each day to the seclusion of his bungalow in the country. And, although every one was friendly to him, he made no friends.

It was only after the arrival of Mrs. Adair that he consented to show himself, and it was soon noted that it was only when she was invited that he would appear, and that on these occasions he devoted himself entirely to her. In the presence of others, he still was shy, gravely polite, and speaking but little, and never of himself; but with Mrs.

Adair his shyness seemed to leave him, and when with her he was seen to talk easily and eagerly. And, on her part, to what he said, Polly Adair listened with serious interest.

Lady Firth, who, at home, was a trained and successful match-maker, and who, in Zanzibar, had found but a limited field for her activities, decided that if her companion and protegee must marry, she should marry Fearing.

Fearing was no gentleman adventurer, remittance-man, or humble clerk serving his apprenticeship to a steamship line or an ivory house. He was one of the pillars of Zanzibar society. The trading house he had purchased had had its beginnings in the slave-trade, and now under his alert direction was making a turnover equal to that of any of its ancient rivals. Personally, Fearing was a most desirable catch. He was well-mannered, well-read, of good appearance, steady, and, in a lat.i.tude only six degrees removed from the equator, of impeccable morals.

It is said that it is the person who is in love who always is the first to discover his successful rival. It is either an instinct or because his concern is deeper than that of others.

And so, when Hemingway sought for the influence that separated him from Polly Adair, the trail led to Fearing. To find that the obstacle in the path of his true love was a man greatly relieved him. He had feared that what was in the thoughts of Mrs. Adair was the memory of her dead husband. He had no desire to cross swords with a ghost. But to a living rival he could afford to be generous.

For he was sure no one could care for Polly Adair as he cared, and, like every other man in love, he believed that he alone had discovered in her beauties of soul and character that to the rest of mankind were hidden. This knowledge, he a.s.sured himself, had aroused in him a depth of devotion no one else could hope to imitate, and this depth of devotion would in time so impress her, would become so necessary to her existence, that it would force her at last into the arms of the only man who could offer it.

Having satisfied himself in this fashion, he continued cheerfully on his way, and the presence of a rival in no way discouraged him. It only was Polly Adair who discouraged him. And this, in spite of the fact that every hour of the day he tried to bring himself pleasantly to her notice. All that an idle young man in love, aided and abetted by imagination and an unlimited letter of credit, could do, Hemingway did.

But to no end.

The treasures he dug out of the bazaars and presented to her, under false pretenses as trinkets he happened at that moment to find in his pockets, were admired by her at their own great value, and returned also under false pretenses, as having been offered her only to examine.

"It is for your sister at home, I suppose," she prompted. "It's quite lovely. Thank you for letting me see it."

After having been several times severely snubbed in this fashion, Hemingway remarked grimly as he put a black pearl back into his pocket:

"At this rate sister will be mighty glad to see me when I get home. It seems almost a pity I haven't got a sister."

The girl answered this only with a grave smile.

On another occasion she admired a polo pony that had been imported for the stable of the boy Sultan. But next morning Hemingway, after much diplomacy, became the owner of it and proudly rode it to the agency.

Lady Firth and Polly Adair walked out to meet him arm in arm, but at sight of the pony there came into the eyes of the secretary a look that caused Hemingway to wish himself and his mount many miles in the jungle. He saw that before it had been proffered, his gift-horse had been rejected. He acted promptly.

"Lady Firth," he said, "you've been so awfully kind to me, made this place so like a home to me, that I want you to put this mare in your stable. The Sultan wanted her, but when he learned I meant to turn her over to you, he let her go. We both hope you'll accept."

Lady Firth had no scruples. In five minutes she had accepted, had clapped a side-saddle on her rich gift, and was cantering joyously down the Pearl Road.

Polly Adair looked after her with an expression that was distinctly wistful. Thus encouraged, Hemingway said:

"I'm glad you are sorry. I hope every time you see that pony you'll be sorry."

"Why should I be sorry?" asked the girl.

"Because you have been unkind," said Hemingway, "and it is not your character to be unkind. And that you have shown lack of character ought to make you sorry."

"But you know perfectly well," said Mrs. Adair, "that if I were to take any one of these wonderful things you bring me, I wouldn't have any character left."

She smiled at him rea.s.suringly. "And you know," she added, "that that is not why I do not take them. It isn't because I can't afford to, or because I don't want them, because I do; but it's because I don't deserve them, because I can give you nothing in return."

"As the copy-book says," returned Hemingway, "'the pleasure is in the giving.' If the copy-book don't say that, I do. And to pretend that you give me nothing, that is ridiculous!"

It was so ridiculous that he rushed on vehemently. "Why, every minute you give me something," he exclaimed. "Just to see you, just to know you are alive, just to be certain when I turn in at night that when the world wakes up again you will still be a part of it; that is what you give me. And its name is--Happiness!"

He had begun quite innocently; he had had no idea that it would come.

But he had said it. As clearly as though he had dropped upon one knee, laid his hand over his heart and exclaimed: "Most beautiful of your s.e.x, I love you! Will you marry me?" His eyes and the tone of his voice had said it. And he knew that he had said it, and that she knew.

Her eyes were filled with sudden tears, and so wonderful was the light in them that for one mad moment Hemingway thought they were tears of happiness. But the light died, and what had been tears became only wet drops of water, and he saw to his dismay that she was most miserable.

The girl moved ahead of him to the cliff on which the agency stood, and which overhung the harbor and the Indian Ocean. Her eyes were filled with trouble. As she raised them to his they begged of him to be kind.

"I am glad you told me," she said. "I have been afraid it was coming.

But until you told me I could not say anything. I tried to stop you.

I was rude and unkind--"

"You certainly were," Hemingway agreed cheerfully. "And the more you would have nothing to do with me, the more I admired you. And then I learned to admire you more, and then to love you. It seems now as though I had always known and always loved you. And now this is what we are going to do."

He wouldn't let her speak; he rushed on precipitately.

"We are first going up to the house to get your typewriting-machine, and we will bring it back here and hurl it as far as we can off this cliff. I want to see the splash! I want to hear it smash when it hits that rock. It has been my worst enemy, because it helped you to be independent of me, because it kept you from me. Time after time, on the veranda, when I was pretending to listen to Lady Firth, I was listening to that d.a.m.ned machine banging and complaining and tiring your pretty fingers and your dear eyes. So first it has got to go.

You have been its slave, now I am going to be your slave. You have only to rub the lamp and things will happen. And because I've told you nothing about myself, you mustn't think that the money that helps to make them happen is 'tainted.' It isn't. Nor am I, nor my father, nor my father's father. I am asking you to marry a perfectly respectable young man. And, when you do--"

Again he gave her no opportunity to interrupt, but rushed on impetuously: "We will sail away across that ocean to wherever you will take me. To Ceylon and Tokio and San Francisco, to Naples and New York, to Greece and Athens. They are all near. They are all yours.

Will you accept them and me?" He smiled appealingly, but most miserably. For though he had spoken lightly and with confidence, it was to conceal the fact that he was not at all confident. As he had read in her eyes her refusal of his pony, he had read, even as he spoke, her refusal of himself. When he ceased speaking the girl answered:

"If I say that what you tell me makes me proud, I am saying too little." She shook her head firmly, with an air of finality that frightened Hemingway. "But what you ask--what you suggest is impossible."